Liffey Meats signs €5m beef deal in France

Liffey Meats has signed a landmark deal that will see Irish beef on sale throughout the 1,500 outlets of France's fourth-largest supermarket group.

Minister for Agriculture and Food Mary Coughlan called the €5 million contract whose signing she witnessed yesterday, "a new beginning for Irish beef in France".

Liffey Meats, a family-run business that employs 250 people in Co Cavan, struck the €5 million deal with Intermarché.

The agreement was concluded with as much pomp and circumstance as an international treaty. Frank Mallon, chief executive of Liffey Meats, Jean-Pierre Conseil, the head of meat products at Intermarché, and Dominique Langlois, the president of the distributor SVA Jean Rozé, signed the document in the Irish Embassy in the neo-classical room where Prince Edward VIII once slept.

Aidan Cotter, the chief executive of Bord Bia, Ms Coughlan and the Ambassador were also in attendance. A harp played in the background. Mr Langlois ended his speech with "go raibh maith agat" to laughter and applause, upon which liveried waiters arrived bearing champagne.

Bord Bia's director in France, Jim O'Toole, oversaw a year of market studies that cost €150,000 and led to the contract. "The argument we got previously was that consumers wouldn't buy any beef that wasn't French," Mr O'Toole said. "After one month of testing, 70 per cent said they would buy Irish beef."

Intermarché wanted to launch the new product on St Patrick's Day, which is widely celebrated in France. Liffey's range of steer beef products are packaged in individual, vacuum-packed consumer portions, each of which bears a small Irish tricolour.

The French meat group Charal pioneered the aluminium packaging. In a smaller contract signed at the year's start, Charal sells Irish fillet steak under its "viandes du monde" label.

Before the BSE crisis in 1996, Ireland sold 45,000 tonnes of beef to France annually. That fell to 13,000 tonnes in 2001.

Ms Coughlan said yesterday's contract was "the second big step" in rebuilding the market, after Dawn Meats' French subsidiary, Scagro, participated in the French food fair SIAL last autumn.

Mr O'Toole said Ireland will export up to 28,000 tonnes of beef to France this year. Bord Bia has changed its strategy. "Five years ago, 50 per cent of Irish beef exports were to the international market beyond Europe," Mr Cotter said. "Today, 90 per cent is within Europe."

"We have huge traceability, very strict controls and good quality, and this is recognised," Ms Coughlan said. "We have developed trust in the French market, which is our second-largest after Britain."

There are still three cases of BSE in Ireland every month, Ms Coughlan admitted. "They are all older animals, born prior to the rules and regulations adopted by the EU in 2000," she said. "They are destroyed immediately. They are out of the food chain. The public have forgotten about BSE."